"This will help minimise the reptile-human conflicts and also address the issues on a larger scale," states Kulkarni, who also believes that such efforts will go a long way in conserving wildlife and creating awareness. Kulkarni is also a member of Goa State Biodiversity Board as well as the Goa State Wildlife Advisory Board.
Nirmal, who is also a member of Viper Specialist Group IUCN initiated a nationwide campaign ‘Living with Pythons' in 2017 to create awareness and instil appreciation about India's three python species - Indian Rock Python (python molurus), Burmese Python (python bivittatus) and Reticulated Python (Malayopython reticulatus).
"This is the first of its kind of initiative for important large snakes like the python and is the first of many initiatives that will follow as part of this project," states Nirmal.
Sponsored by Pramod Kamble, Aarushee Solar Energy, Kalyan, Shashikant Damani of Damani Vidyut Kendra, Navi Mumbai and Allwyn Nazaeth, Four Dimentions, Navi Mumbai, these bags are made of breathable cotton material and are designed for safe handling, rescue and release of large bodied snakes like pythons. Easy to carry and wash, these bags play a major role in safety of both the snake handler as well as the snake in times of rescue as well as release of the snake. These special bags will replace gunny bags and cement bags, which were used prior to this distribution. In some areas, discarded pillow covers, large metal and plastic drums and metal cages were in use for transportation as well as accommodation of rescued pythons.
A hand written letter accompanied every snake bag and a badge acknowledging the hard work being put in by on ground reptile conservationists across the country. All the bags were sent by Speed Post India through the Indian Postal Service across Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat, Odisha, Delhi, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
There are ongoing efforts to procure 100 more bags for distribution in other selected regions in the country and funds are being raised for the same. According to Nirmal, Indian python species together, represent some of the largest snake species of the world. While the Reticulated python is now acknowledged as one of the largest snakes in the world, the Burmese python is a near threatened species in its range in Burma and North East India. The species found in India commonly, the Indian Rock python has a high mortality rate due to human reptile conflict and habitat loss.
This initiative has also helped network with field workers across the country for the first time and discussions, standard rescue protocols and data sharing for these snakes are now in progress. A morale boost for field workers and serious researchers has now resulted in focused work for python conservation in India. It will also contribute to creating awareness on the issue of human- snake conflicts and efforts of python survival in human dominated rural and urban landscapes.
